“Last spring … Mayor Nutter met privately with Harold Sorgenti, chairman of the Philadelphia Orchestra Association, and agreed to provide a $250,000 unscheduled grant to the city’s premier music ensemble.” The funding was taken from the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, some of whose board members “argue that the Nutter administration … has now undermined the integrity of an arts-funding process that was explicitly designed to steer clear of the muddying influence of politics.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Children’s Book Based On False Holocaust Tale Is Recalled
“The children’s book based on the story of a Holocaust survivor who met his future wife when she tossed him apples over a concentration camp fence has been recalled. The move came a few days after the North Miami-Dade couple on whom the book was based admitted their love story was a lie. Angel Girl was written by Coral Gables children’s book author Laurie Friedman and illustrated by Israeli illustrator Ofra Amit.”
Live Nation Dumping Ticketmaster, But Prices Won’t Drop
On Friday, Live Nation ditches its longstanding relationship with Ticketmaster to launch its own ticketing service. Thus “some have floated the possibility that competition will drive ticket prices and extraneous service charges down. Live Nation has no firm plans to lower either….”
Would Oliver Twist Really Have Needed More Gruel?
“Six melancholic one-syllable words to summon all we know and feel about stark deprivation: ‘Please, sir, I want some more.’ But what if we coldly ask whether Oliver really needed any more — that is, was the Victorian workhouse diet sufficient for a 9-year-old boy?”
Last Winter’s Writers’ Strike Still Rippling Through Industry
“During the heart of last winter’s writers’ strike, the broadcast networks tried to play down the impact of the four-month walkout, insisting that the medium would suffer few long-term effects. Just the opposite has been true. With 2008 drawing to an end, broadcast is still suffering from strike hangover, and it may not get any better in 2009.”
In 50 States For 24 Hours, Dancing As Meditation On War
“How about watching someone, blindfolded and wearing earplugs, move continuously in one space for 24 hours? How about doing it yourself? As of Monday afternoon there were still 19 spots open in ‘freedom of information 2008,’ organized by the choreographer Miguel Gutierrez in response to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Welsh Lit Fest May Try To Save Brecon Jazz Fest
“Wales’ top literary festival is looking at whether it can help rescue the Brecon Jazz festival. The Hay Festival, held every summer just 18 miles away, already has ties with the music event and its director Peter Florence says it wants to help. Brecon Jazz announced earlier this month it had ceased trading after suffering a ‘substantial loss’.”
Bush, Reader In Chief — But What Kind Of Reader?
“In what without a doubt is the most astounding op-ed piece of the year, Karl Rove reveals that his friend and former boss, George W. Bush, has read probably hundreds of books over the course of his presidency. … But the books themselves reveal — actually, confirm — something about Bush that maybe Rove did not intend. They are not the reading of a widely read man, but instead the books of a man who seeks — and sees — vindication in every page.”
Newbery Winners, Where White Boys Live In Intact Families
“Characters depicted in Newbery winners are more likely to be white, male and come from two-parent households than the average U.S. child, according to a Brigham Young University study. The trend has accelerated even as the U.S. has diversified, with fewer black and Hispanic main characters in the past 27 years than in the Civil Rights era of 1951-79.”
In Used-Book Sales, Online Agility Is Make-Or-Break Skill
“The Wonder Book story offers the standard plot elements of successful entrepreneurial sagas: hard work, risk-taking, technical innovation, good luck. But … the story of how Chuck Roberts came to fill up those 54,000 square feet of warehouse space is also the story of how swiftly the once-sleepy business of selling used books has been remade over the past decade. To Roberts, ‘the Web book business is literally the Wild West.'”